Stuffed & Starved
Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System
‘The hunger of 800 million happens at the same time as another historical first: that they are out-numbered by the one billion people on this planet who are overweight.’—Raj Patel
Who really decides what we eat and how we think about food? How did the stuffed come to outnumber the starved and why are so many of them poor?
Stuffed & Starved is a groundbreaking inquiry into the global food industry. To reveal the stories behind the products in our shopping trolleys, Raj Patel visits rice-paddies in India, coffee farms in Africa, protestor-packed streets in South Korea, UN agencies and corporate boardrooms. As he connects the dots between these places and our plates, he uncovers the real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa, the false choices given us by supermarkets and a handful of middlemen in control of the world’s food supply. He also encounters a growing resistance to this control and offers a recipe for a healthier, tastier and more equitable food system.
‘One of the most dazzling books I’ve read in a very long time. The product of a brilliant mind and a gift to a world hungering for justice.’—Naomi Klein
Raj Patel has worked for the World Bank, interned at the WTO, consulted for the UN and been involved in international campaigns against his former employers. Currently a researcher at the University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal in South Africa and a visiting scholar at the Center for African Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, his education includes degrees from Oxford, the London School of Economics & Cornell University. Stuffed and Starved is his first book.
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